Canadians supporting Palestine face job loss, condemnation

TRENTON, Canada

Expressing support for Palestinians in the ongoing conflict in Gaza risks Canadians being fired, suspended from their jobs and calls to not be hired, the country's public broadcaster reported on Friday.

It is a development in other countries, too, including the US and Europe, and affects various employment fields, such as the service sector, education, health care, the law and media.

"I can tell you personally, in the last month and a half, I've probably spoken with someone at least once a day [about this]," Jackie Esmonde, a labor lawyer at the Toronto-based firm Cavalluzzo Law, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). "They're not always cases that we take on, but we do have in the range of eight to 10 cases that we're actively working on at the moment."

She said these are not cases of hate speech or support for terrorism.

In November, the University of Ottawa suspended Dr. Yipeng Ge after a social media post that said: “From the River to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The university interpreted this to mean the “ethnic cleansing of Jewish people from Israel."

Others have suffered job suspensions for posts that featured the words “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe Israel’s actions.

In November, 650 lawyers, law students and professors from across Canada published an open letter that says there is a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression since the start of the Israeli-Hamas conflict on Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, lawyers interviewed by the CBC said they were not aware of anyone facing consequences for social media posts supporting Israel.

And two employees at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies – a non-profit human rights organization that fosters antisemitism education – told the CBC that teachers at the center have been told to report students who make statements critical of Israel.